


too late to apologize

by TheTinyTortoise



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTinyTortoise/pseuds/TheTinyTortoise
Summary: It’s an incongruous sight, the butler with the master’s daemon trailing at his heels.





	too late to apologize

It doesn’t make him sick anymore, the wrongness that starts at the very core of him and creeps outwards like fingers prying open his ribs from the inside out. He supposes he’s used to it by now. It hurts like the dull ache of a bruise when you press your fingers against it. It’s a familiar pain, one he’s not quite sure what he would do without. He can barely remember a time without it.

“Young Master?” Mey-Rin asks, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her swan’s feathers puff up and he tugs anxiously at the hem of her dress. “Are you alright? You’ve gone a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” Ciel snaps roughly. Mey-Rin’s swan makes a honking noise of mortification and nearly falls over his own webbed feet. Ciel almost feels bad-but her eyes are straying into his study, where Sebastian and Mephista have already strayed, and he can read the confusion on her face. It’s an incongruous sight, the butler with the master's daemon trailing at his heels. It’s not quite right, and he can see that she knows it on her face.

Mephista jumps up onto the desk where Sebastian is waiting, that infuriating smirk on his face as always. She butts her head up against his hand, and Ciel shoves himself past Mey-Rin into the study before she can see.

“That will be all,” he shouts, and slams the door.

Outside, he can hear her sputtering. “Young master!” She yelps.

Sebastian’s silent laughter burns in Ciel’s ears. He never lets Ciel see any emotion other than that damn smirk, but Ciel doesn’t need to watch his nonexistent daemon to read him. He can feel Sebastian’s cruel mirth with every stroke of Mephista’s fur.

“I’ve told you to be more discreet,” Ciel snaps, stalking over to the desk and scooping Mephista up. She’s cat-shaped at the moment, sleek and black, but when he takes her in his arms her black fur shifts into sleek scales. He nearly drops her when she spits at him with serpentine fangs.

Sebastian watches all with those laughing eyes.

Mephista slithers out of Ciel’s grip and shifts again, shedding scales for gleaming ebony feathers. Raven-shaped, she glides over to Sebastian’s shoulder. She preens at his hair, and Ciel’s breath catches in his throat. He has to sit down, pressing one hand against his chest.

“Young master?” Sebastian asks, all innocent, pretending like he doesn’t know exactly what’s going on. Mephista mantles as she avoids Ciel’s eyes.

“Tell me,” Ciel wheezes, “do all of the humans you strike deals with have daemons that hate them afterwards?”

Mephista caws, low, bitter.

Sebastian hums. “It is not unusual,” He drawls, “but Mephista is, as in all things, unique.” He strokes a finger down one of her primary feathers, and her dark eyes slide shut. “I have never encountered a soul so…..enticing.”

Ciel’s lips thin. “Well, you can’t have her yet,” he says, fully aware that he sounds like a child and unsure how to stop it. “Until our deal is concluded, she’s still mine.”

Sebastian’s smug smile turns patronizing. He looms over Ciel, and for a moment Ciel can see enormous black wings to match Mephista’s sprouting from his back. Then they’re gone, and Ciel wonders if it had just been a trick of his eyes.

“Do you really have the right to be jealous?” Sebastian purrs. “You were the one who gave her to me. Can you really be the one who’s upset now that she prefers me?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Ciel snaps, not sure who he’s really speaking to-the demonic butler or the daemon who’s no longer really his. Both are equally unfeeling, one watching with amusement and the other ignoring the scene entirely. “Don’t you understand that?”

Sebastian’s teeth glint in the light as he smiles. “Oh, young master,” he says, caressing Ciel’s cheek with one ungloved hand. The touch is just as electric as it is against Mephista’s feathers. “Don’t worry yourself unnecessarily.”

He leans closer, until those dark eyes are all Ciel can see. “You two will be as one when I devour you. Then you shall never be parted again.”

Ciel shudders and he feels the sigil in Sebastian’ palm burn. Mephista leaps into the air in an explosion of feathers, cawing in a mad sort of ecstasy of fear and desire.

And then Sebastian steps back, smiling that inane smile of his, and declares “Earl grey tea with dinner, I think. Shall I bring you a slice of cake to soothe your nerves, young master?”

Mephista shifts into her sleek tabby form and nestles into his arms. Ciel’s fingers twitch. He remembers holding her like that. Sebastian’s glittering eyes, as always, see all.

Lightly, he drops her into Ciel’s lap. She yowls, betrayed, but Sebastian just keeps smiling. Ciel knows in that moment that for once their thoughts are completely united-what exactly would it take to wipe that grin off his face?

Then Sebastian shimmers outside and they’re left alone, a boy and a soul that won’t be his for much longer. Mephista regards him with eyes the color of lamp light, tail lashing back and forth slowly.

“I can’t forgive you,” she says. Ciel’s heart jumps in his chest-he can’t remember the last time she spoke to him.

“That’s alright,” he says hoarsely. “I can’t forgive myself.”

Her golden stare doesn't falter. “But forgiveness isn’t really what we need, is it?”

No, he thinks. It’s too late for that. What they need is revenge.

“Just hope,” she says simply, “that it will be worth it.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Mephista is unsettled. Her various forms look something like this:   
> Cat:   
> https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQ4EdTBbJf351RNH2evvCI6uEelPC00daudW3Ub_ehzShRiTQ6R  
> Raven:   
> https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-07/13/10/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-21821-1499954416-1.jpg?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto  
> Snake:   
> http://s3.thingpic.com/images/pv/bUf6UjUaAspU1LJ43dR9ZdfT.jpeg
> 
> Mey-Rin has a black-necked swan. He looks clumsy most of the time but he can be deadly as hell when he wants to be. His name is Jing-Sheng.   
> http://www.slim-bridge.co.uk/photos/black%20necked%20swan/06%2027-10-12.jpg
> 
>  
> 
> Sebastian has no daemon. It’s one of the many things that makes him creepy as hell. Ciel constantly tries to get him to pretend but he always conveniently “forgets”.


End file.
